The present invention rates to a device for the transfer of products.
In particular the invention pertains to the field of the technique relating to devices for of transferring products such as, for example, cigarette packets, from a vertical conveyor belt to a reception channel positioned. With it advancement direction, substantially transversely to that of the conveyor belt itself.
A transfer of such type is often necessary in the field of wrapping machines Wherein the products have a substantially parallelepiped shape and have to be transferred by an intermittent advancement vertical conveyor belt, which moves forward the products stacked on onto the other to a horizontal reception channel which moves forward the products one behind the other.
The transfer devices already known are of a mechanical type and are usually constituted by a mobile pushing element with alternative motion and aligned to the reception channel. Said pushing element is movable between a backward position, taken up during the lifting of the products by the vertical conveyor belt and a forward position wherein the pushing element itself delivers to the reception channel one or more products taken from the stack of products fed by the vertical conveyor belt.
Such transfer device is simple but has notable operating and kinematic limits, in that the vertical conveyor belt cannot make the stack of products rise until the pushing element is brought into the backward position. This means that the length of the stroke of the pushing element and its speed represent a key factor for determining the duration of the stopping phase of the vertical conveyor belt,
In order to reduce the duration of said stopping phase, or to increase the operating speed of the conveyor belts, it is possible to reduce the stroke of the pushing element or to increase its speed. The reduction of the stroke sometimes cannot be carried out, whereas the increase of the speed is not possible above certain values due to the alternative motion of the pushing element.
With the transfer devices of a known type described above, it is not therefore possible to increase beyond certain limits the operating speed of the machine to which the above mentioned transfer device relates.
The object of the present invention is to provide a mechanical transfer device capable of functioning at a considerable operating speed, and capable of, consequently, being applied to wrapping machines operating at a very high speed.